7. Haldir – The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
There are few movie trilogies as good as The Lord of the Rings, and that’s a hill we’re willing to die on. However, of all the deaths that occur over the course of the fantasy epic, perhaps none are as disappointing as Haldir’s, the commander of the Elven army at the Battle of Helm’s Deep. Haldir’s death serves as the moment that all hope seems lost for the forces of Men and Elves, and it’s treated as a moment of great importance in relation not just to the battle but to the trilogy as a whole.
The problem is, the movies do practically nothing to establish Haldir as an important character. In fact, to casual audiences, it’s unclear who exactly Haldir is, because he makes only a brief appearance in The Fellowship of the Ring before his death in The Two Towers. By failing to establish his importance, The Lord of the Rings makes the character seem particularly disposable, which means that treating his death as a moment of such gravity (with excessive slow motion employed to really drive it home) felt unearned and incredibly pointless.
What makes Haldir’s death even more pointless is the way that Gandalf arrives mere moments later with the Rohirrim and saves the day. In the space of one scene, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers highlights how little it’s used the character, assigns importance to his unceremonious death, and then equally unceremoniously rips that importance away by rendering his sacrifice entirely hollow. Haldir’s death is by far one of the worst in the Lord of the Rings movies, because the character simply doesn’t mean anything to the majority of the audience.